the early Galilean days of hope in our Lord's ministry, and the later
days of disappointment and conflict; and that if we look, we shall find
in Galilee the "_fin et joyeux moraliste_," full of a "_conversation
pleine de gaiete et de charme_," of "_douce gaiete et aimables
plaisanteries_," with a "_predication suave et douce, toute pleine de la
nature et du parfum des champs_," creating out of his originality of
mind his "_innocents aphorismes_," and the "_genre d'elicieux_" of
parabolic teaching; "_le charmant docteur qui pardonnait a tous pourvu
qu'on l'aimat_." He lived in what was then an earthly paradise, in "_la
joyeuse Galilee_" in the midst of the "_nature ravissante_" which gave
to everything about the Sea of Galilee "_un tour idyllique et
charmant_." So the history of Christianity at its birth is a
"_delicieuse pastorale_" an "_idylle_," a "_milieu enivrant_" of joy and
hope. The master was surrounded by a "_bande de joyeux enfants_," a
"_troupe gaie et vagabonde_," whose existence in the open air was a
"perpetual enchantment." The disciples were "_ces petits comites de
bonnes gens_," very simple, very credulous, and like their country full
of a "_sentiment gai et tendre de la vie_," and of an "_imagination
riante_." Everything is spoken of as "delicious"--"_delicieuse
pastorale," "delicieuse beaute," "delicieuses sentences," "delicieuse
theologie d'amour_." Among the "tender and delicate souls of the
North"--it is not quite thus that Josephus describes the Galileans--was
set up an "_aimable communisme_." Is it possible to imagine a more
extravagant distortion than the following, both in its general effect
and in the audacious generalisation of a very special incident, itself
inaccurately conceived of?--

Il parcourait ainsi la Galilee au milieu _d'une fete perpetuelle_.
Il se servait d'une mule, monture en Orient si bonne et si sure,
et dont le grand oeil noir, ombrage de longs cils, a beaucoup de
douceur. Ses disciples deployarent quelquefois autour de lui une
pompe rustique, dont leurs vetements, tenant lieu de tapis,
faisaient les frais. Ils les mettaient sur la mule qui le portait,
ou les etendaient a terre sur son passage.

History has seen strange hypotheses; but of all extravagant notions,
that one that the world has been conquered by what was originally an
idyllic gipsying party is the most grotesque. That these "_petits
comites de bonnes gens_" though influenced by a grea